We Might've Been
by effies-scrapbook
Summary: I don't have to run around the same old patterns like it's a habit. I don't have to keep going back to June 7th like a chore. I don't have to, I don't want to. But…like you've said before, Haymitch. It's hard to stop once you start. /hayffie angst


**We Might've Been || hayffie**

* * *

I am peacefully asleep.

No nightmares.

No nothing.

Just **black.**

Just serenity.

Until, of course, I am awakened by a scream ripping through the silence and everything goes to shit.

_Just my goddamn luck._

I get up — because someone has to check out the well-being of the tributes, since Effie sleeps like a log and never bothers to wake up before 5:45 in the morning — and rub the sleep out of my eyes. The few whiskey bottles that litter the floor roll away in the presence of my thundering footsteps, and the screams soon stop altogether to closer I get to the living room.

_"You're okay, Liv, everything will be okay."_

Effie Trinket, I see, has finally stirred awake. How rare. When I stand in the doorway, the escort's back facing me, the girl, Liv, apparently doesn't see me either. The raven-haired tribute with tears racing down her jutting cheekbones keeps her stare on the Capitol woman, her hands in Effie's and her chest rising up and down in a rattling motion.

_"I'm not going to win. I'm going to die,"_ Liv tells her. _"I'm never coming home."_

My breath hitches in my throat. If I were Effie, what would I say?

Effie purses her lips tightly._ "No, no you're going to win. You know why? Because I believe in you, that's why," _she whispers.

_"You really promise?" _the girl asks brightly.

_"Yes, Liv, I really promise."_

The girl gives a soft smile and I can see Effie's own falter under the weight of the moment. I'm not one for cheesy, tug-at-the-heartstrings kind of scenes, but hell. Never knew Trinket had a heart for being so touching. So motherly.

Makes me wonder if there was something I don't know.

When Liv goes back to bed, I stay still for a second and watch Effie move from the middle of the room to the windowsill. She presses herself against the wall, her hand now covering her quivering mouth.

And then, I start to really think there _is_ something I don't know.

"Hey," I call out. I walk away from my hiding spot in the hall and towards the escort, but it doesn't seem to faze her. "I heard what you said to Liv. Didn't know you had a conscience."

"Yeah? Well, me neither," she replies just as coolly. "Didn't think you'd stick around to hear the rest. Thought you left as soon as Liv did."

"I would've gone back if you hadn't — "

"Know what today is, Haymitch?"

The sharp coldness in her voice stops me in my tracks. I muffle my attempt at a half-hearted guess because anything less is bastard's move. So I stay quiet and wait for her to answer at her own pace.

"_Today's my son's birthday," _she whispers._ "He would've been eight."_

It's like someone knocked the wind out of me.

"I—"

"Don't apologize for something you took no part in. _Please_."

I can't say anything that could possibly make her feel any better.

"I…I fell asleep behind the wheel, driving him home from school. Ran right through a red light. Killed my son in the making. I made it out with a broken arm and five stitches, how is that fair? I managed to live with barely a scratch and my son had to die? Tell me it isn't my fault. Tell me it's in God's great plan to take the life of a three year-old boy. Tell me it's all for the best."

She walks out to the balcony and I follow right behind her. She stops when her hips collide into the railing, and if it weren't for the metal barrier, I am entirely convinced that she would've walked right into Death. And she wouldn't give a damn.

I move next to her, my hand a few centimeters from hers, just in case.

"My husband…left me a year after the fact. I would've left me too, God was I a mess. But…"

She looks away, as if she's afraid of anyone hearing any more. There's a heavy, defining silence that scares me to death. The woman that never shut the hell up is now deathly, eerily quiet. It's not okay.

"Lawyers talked in circles that never made any sense. The other person I could ever count on knowing just what I was going through was calling me a murderer. Did they ever consider that I felt bad for what I did too? Sometimes I wish _I_ was the one who died."

"Don't say that."

"You know…we might've been infinite, might have lasted," she tells me. Her hands clench the railing tightly, and she looks like she's about to go ahead and plummet twelve stories to her death. She dips her head down, and in a shaking, quivering voice, she says, "We might've been an actual family."

"You don't have to — " I start to say, but she cuts me off before I could finish.

"No, I don't have to," she says, "I don't have to run around the same old patterns like it's a habit. I don't have to keep going back to June 7th like a chore. I don't have to, I don't want to. But…like you've said before, Haymitch. It's hard to stop once you start."

She looks up, a soft, sad smile dancing on her lips. How long has she been battling this? How many nights of drifting sadness has she endured? And better yet…how many more nights will she have to brave her life alone?

"What was his name?"

"Holden," she whispers. "Holden Bishop. He was beautiful — he _is_."

In the silence between us, I can feel her tense. I can feel her tears rolling down her cheeks. I can feel her breathing next to me and I can feel her hatred for herself. And above all things, I can feel her sadness.

"Go to bed, Haymitch," she murmurs. "Please go to bed. I'll see you in the morning."

I want to listen to her. I want to easily turn around and go back to bed and forget I ever learned this much about her, about her son, about her ex-husband. I want to, I really do.

Too late for that now.

So I sling my arm around her tiny waist, pulling her so close to me that I can hear her heart beating against mine. And as she cries, as she calls for Holden to come back to her, as she damns herself to hell for being reckless…

She says, _"Thank you."_

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_lol not my best, but review anyway, please? pre-74th_


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